Peeling Away @ Pop Culture That's Ripe

InASense, Lost… Kids Movies, Now And Then

Over the holidays, my buddy/boss Paul was kind enough to inform me of how terrible Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked happened to be (it was his children’s choice… at least I believe it was). I told him “thanks” and “I figured.” But it got me thinking… they sure don’t make kids movies like they made when I was a kid anymore.

In fact, there’s practically no way they would make the movies I grew up with, and here’s a few plus the reasons why:

THE PREMISE: Kid in a trailer park plays an arcade game so well he gets recruited to be an intergalactic war hero.

THE STOPPER: Justifies kids playing video games.

Sure, arcades don’t exist anymore, so there’s that. Besides, this idea has already been tackled in more adult fare, such as Barry Levinson’s Toys and the sci-fi flop, Gamer. There is no talk of a remake, but there was a 2004 off-Broadway musical based on it…

Sure, kids these days are way more hyper-sexual in their text messages than the language in this film, but would parents complain? Someone would complain. There’s talk of a remake, but it’s supposedly going to be about more current monsters, like Freddy Kruger or the Predator.

THE PREMISE: A group of kids seek out a pirate’s treasure to save their town.

THE STOPPERS: Racism, Sloth, and gluing penises upside-down.

Sure, you may get Samwise Gamgee out of this movie one day, but you also get Jonah Hex. (And Corey Feldman.) They’ve been talking about a sequel to this longer than an Arrested Development film, and we all know how that’s going… they’re making it!

THE PREMISE: A kid finds a video game cartridge containing information that could get him killed, so he runs for his life with the help of an imaginary friend.

THE STOPPER: The kid kills a bad guy.

Sure, it has that whole “video game could get you killed” angle, but the kid really shoots someone! Cross my Atari! And so far, no sequel, prequel, remake, or reboot talk at all… even though this was pretty much a remake.

THE PREMISE: Two kids are chased by bad guys because they stole a car with a dead body in its trunk!

THE STOPPER: The premise!

Sure, this was marketed as a kid movie, but we didn’t know better at that time. It was written by screenwriter Joe Eszterhas… you know, the guy that scripted Flashdance, Basic Instinct, and Showgirls. There isn’t even a DVD release planned for this flick.